


Myths

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [49]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grounder Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 09:48:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15288879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: Echo explains grounder culture to Bellamy





	Myths

**Author's Note:**

> I was discussing how the Flame doesn't make much sense if Lexa is the one to unify the clans. And suddenly I'm 2000 words in grounder religion. Yay!

Bellamy is having one of his bad days. Echo can tell as soon as she enters the room. They all have their ups and downs up here in their little space castle, and Echo has learned how to deal with every one of them. Bellamy is always the trickiest because he sometimes retreats to flagellate himself, and others reacts in bursts of violent energy followed by a lethargy that has him unmoving, sometimes for days.

“Do you wish me to leave you be?” she asks carefully. Their relationship is still pretty new, and she isn’t sure how she’s supposed to act in this situation.

He jerks his head towards her, eyes narrowing at the praying beads she was distractedly twirling between her fingers. “No, it’s fine.”

She approaches him carefully, settling on the chair to toe her boots off. Raven has been using her as her personal courier all day, and she’s tired, her muscles sore of carrying heavy machinery.

Bellamy stares off into the distance from his perch on their bed. Flagellating it is.

“How was your day?” she asks tentatively. “Anything interesting in Earth monitoring?” He blinks at her without really seeing her. “We missed you at dinner.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

The conversation is obviously over, so she slips her praying beads into their small leather pouch and locks them into the drawer together with her butchering knife, bowstrings, and arrowheads.

“Tell me about your beads,” his voice startles her.

“There isn’t much to tell. I use them to  concentrate and channel my mind away from unfruitful thoughts.” She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth, an unbecoming habit she has picked up from Harper. “They also remind me of my land.”

“Tell me.”

It’s less a command than a plea. Echo likes that about Bellamy. He’s not authoritarian when he doesn’t need to be. He’s usually soft-spoken and fair. ‘ _The markings of a great leader_ ,’ as Haiplana Nia would say.

“About Azgeda?” This is a first. Considering all the pain Azgeda caused him, it was never a surprise for Echo that he didn’t want to know more about her land. She understands and keeps her small mementos securely locked up, the beads the only thing she carries on her person at all times.

“Yes.”

“What do you want to know?”

He shrugs one shoulder, but now it’s obvious that whatever has him ‘down,’ as skaikru puts it, is related to her culture.

Bellamy leans back against the bed’s headboard. “I don’t know, tell me an Azgeda story or something.”

Echo wets her lips. Tramps the sudden jolt of glee that threatens to rise to the surface and crosses her legs under her.

“I lived with my aunt’s family for a few years after my mother died, before I was taken in to serve Haiplana Nia.” He knows this already. “I was six when they took me, but I remember some of her stories. She was the first one to tell me about spirits.” A sad smile pulls on the corners of her mouth.

“Tell me?”

“Spirits live in the Higherlands, beyond the Void that separates our world from theirs. There are thousands of spirits: tree spirits and animal spirits, light spirits, and fire spirits. The Winter Spirit lives in an ice castle of crystal-clear walls masterfully crafted and mirror-like floors, the ice so smooth it looks like diamonds. Around it, the winds are so harsh your nose would fall off if you dared to approach it. Two powerful steeds sleep in the castle’s stables: Blizzard and Hailstorm and now and then his master lets them run: their hooves raising clouds of snow even in the warmest of deserts. They travel between worlds, blanketing the world, trampling over harvests and freezing oceans. Sometimes they'll even trample humans. There aren’t more magnificent steeds anywhere, and if you were to catch one, you could ask for a reward from the Winter Spirit. Children are the only ones who can see them, and sometimes they stay outside to try and ride them. But those that manage to climb on their backs are swept away so quickly; they never find their way back home. They are the servants in the Winter Spirit’s castle.”

“Why does he sent the horses?”

Echo shrugs."Who can divine the reasons behind the spirits' actions." She pauses, then: “Most of the spirits stay in the Higherlands, not bothering with the world of the living. They’re too busy creating and inventing new creatures and environments. My aunt used to say the stars are new suns. ‘A sun for every world they’ve created.’”

She licks her lips. “But some spirits enjoy messing around their creations. They’re not content with abandoning the world once they’ve created it. They take the form of humans, or animals, or even trees and play with us. Fox spirits are the most common, causing disarray wherever they go: starting fights, hiding socks and blades, stealing beautiful baubles. My uncle knew all of Fox's stories. He would tell them to us in the winter months when the ground was frozen, and Blizzard and Hailstorm pranced around the Azgedan’ fields. He told us how Fox stole fire from the fire spirits because he wanted to play with humans and the days were just too short. He told us how, when he was bored Fox pitted spirits against each other, and when it inevitably exploded in his nose, he would come to spend time around one Kru or another, pulling weird inventions from his mind to ease their daily tasks, ensuring the Kru had more time for him.”

“And the Commander? What is she a spirit of?”

“She was the Keeper of all of the Spirit’s knowledge. She loved humans and their inquisitive minds, so she abandoned the Higherlands, crossed the Void and chained her essence to a mortal body. She lives among humans and, when her body dies, she chooses another.”

“Clarke said that it was every clan for itself until Lexa unified them.”

Echo chuckles. “That’s Trikru propaganda. Becca Primeheda was the first unifier of the clans; she had children in every tribe because she loved them all equally. When Becca’s body died, and the Commander chose another body, the clans were like brothers. The new Commander gave every clan leader a parcel of land, and he roamed the world, spending time with every clan. But then clans started to resent each other. Jealousy and anger were growing and pulling the clans away from each other. Three Commanders were slaughtered in quick succession, Becca’s children hid, their numbers dwindling as assassins lurked in the shadows, crossing borders and hunting them down."

“Why?”

“They wanted the Commander’s spirit to choose only from their clan. The honor coming tied with power and knowledge. The Commander stopped roaming the lands, taking her seat in Polis. That’s when the Flamekipas started to round the natblida’s up, bringing them to the capital. Borders were closed, and Polis became the Seat of Knowledge while the rest of the world tore itself apart.

Over the decades some tried to unify the clans, but the Mountain never allowed it: sending their reapers into villages, killing and assassinating leaders, sending whole clans into chaos. Lexa was the only one sneaky enough to manage her coalition, but Commanders had been trying it for generations.”

“So, what I am getting here is that the Commander was a religious leader that became the political leadership.”

“Religion? You mean as in the pre-Primfaya belief systems?

“Yeah.”

“It’s not the same. We have proof that the Commander’s spirit leaves one body and inhabits another.”

He wants to say something about the fact that it is a computer chip, but he bites his tongue. “From what I know, it is dangerous to have your spiritual leader be your political leader as well.”

“It is what it is.”

“So how does it work with other spirits? How do you know when you’re in front of a spirit as opposed to any other human?”

“Well, you don’t, unless they reveal their power.” Echo sighs. “You’re thinking of Wanheda?”

He looks sheepish, half an apology already on the tip of his tongue, not that she needs one. She’s been in the presence of spirits before, knows how their existence can haunt you.

“You people call her Commander of Death. Is that the same as a spirit?”

“Commander is the most common name for them, yes.”

“So, how do you know?” he’s torturing himself, as he’s prone to do when the days are slow, and he’s feeling melancholy. She shouldn’t indulge him. But she has always had a soft spot for Bellamy, could never deny him anything.

“She brought a man back from the dead.”

“What?”

“There wasn’t much to do inside the cages, so the newcomers told stories. This Trikru girl told us how Wanheda stood over the body of a reaper and commanded him back to life. The reaper healed, becoming a man again.” Bellamy blinks at her. “You didn’t know about that?”

“I was there.”

Echo’s face lights up, her eyes round with wonder, her whole body jerking up. “You _saw_?”

“Yes. It wasn’t like that. We had these electric sticks. They help jumpstart your heart. That’s what Abby used.”

“But it didn’t work until Wanheda told it to work.”

Bellamy remembers that morning. He remembers how tired he was after spending the whole previous day and night awake looking after Lincoln. He remembers the Commander, this petite woman with the impassive face and the smudged war paint all over her face. Remembers thinking ‘she looks like Octavia.’ Remembers the tension in the air, the thrill of a fight about to start, the promise of violence. He remembers Clarke’s voice, calm and clear where he was tense as a hot wire. Clarke had always been strong, but at that moment she was unimaginably powerful. Yes, he can believe that it was her saving Lincoln what made people believe she was a goddess. A part of him wants to tell Echo Clarke wasn’t; she was just an extraordinary girl that died too young because he couldn’t protect her.

But another, louder part likes the idea that Clarke will become part of the grounder pantheon. That she will be remembered, that, when Echo goes back to earth, she will tell the story of Wanheda to their children, her memory will be forever woven into the collective imaginary.

He sighs. “I am tired.”

“Bellamy?”

He hums, and Echo finds herself at a loss for words. What can she possibly say to him to ease his suffering? “Do you want me gone?” He raises his head from the pillow. “If you prefer I not be here to remind you of” _what I have done_ is on the tip of her tongue, but it sounds hollow, and she falters. “If you’d rather I sleep someplace else tonight.”

Bellamy stares at her for a whole minute before noticing he’s on her side of the bed. He chuckles without humor and scoots over. “No, actually, I’d rather you stay.” She pads across the room to the bed and climbs in when he pulls the covers away for her, settling by his side. Bellamy snuggles against her, burying his face in her abdomen. “Tell me another story?”

Echo cards her fingers through his hair. “Any requests?”

“Something that’s happy. One in which everybody lives.”

It is a difficult request, but she would walk to the ends of the Earth for him, so she rakes her brain until she finds a suitable story for him. And, if he’s asleep by the end of it, it doesn’t really matter, as long as he’s snuggled so close to her, his heartbeat strong and firm against her skin, his hand splayed over her ribs.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting. As always this was unbetad


End file.
